Saturday, April 21, 2012

Any curry with chicken drumsticks (I'll call them, Kodi Kallu- Murgi legs just for fun! ) are my hubby's favorite. Chicken is a good source of protein, we can make it even more healthy by trimming fat and skin from the meat we cook. One day while watching TED videos (For them who do not know about these videos, they are like the research or survey presentations done by the individual people. The bottom line is, it is a platform where the people present their inventions and discoveries) one Indian teenage girl found out that chicken marinated with lemon juice at least for one hour reduced the amount of carcinogens(Cancer causing agents) in it. So, friends let us marinate the chicken and have it.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

For me eating raw vegtables and leaves seemed weird before. This is because I am born and brought up in India where the people cook the food with all those delicious spices and eat. I love my food cooked and flavored, but now after tasting many different kinds of salads which are healthy too, I find myself enjoying these kind of foods either. Especially, Iceburg Lettuce it is wonderful leafy vegetable that you can enjoy every bite of it with any combination you wish, some people like eating it with salads and some like me love eating with fried rice. Now coming to the recipe.

Method:
Heat oil in a pan and add bay leaf, beans, celery, onions and green chili. Saute until the raw flavor goes away. Then add coriander powder, soy sauce, salt and pepper powder. Give a quick saute until the all vegetables are well cooked under medium flame. Now add rice, mint leaves and cilantro and mix well. Cook for about 2min under medium flame and squeeze some lemon juice at the end. Let it cool down a little bit because the lettuce leaf is very tender it may loose its crispness when you add hot rice to it.

To seperate leaves from lettuce, hit the stem portion to the cutting board twice then it will become loose and you can pull out the stem easily. Now you are left with leaves and you can easily seperate them. Take water in a bowl and add 1/2tbsp of salt and wash the lettuce leaves in it, keep it aside and let it dry. When the leaves are dry, put some rice in the leaf and fold it, place the folded portion down and serve with your favorite sauce on top. You can enjoy the same with egg fried rice, chicken fried rice etc., it tastes wonderful!!!

Hope you like my recipe, please feel free to post your comments. They are very valuable for me, you can even subscribe by e-mail to my blog, the recipes will reach your inbox. ThanX for visiting my space. Please bookmark it to visit/ remember again.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Besin/ Senaga Pappu/ Gram flour is one wonderful powder that adds magic taste to few recipes, besin bhendi is one of them. Everyone like their bhendi/Bendakaya fry crispy and no sticky, that is possible only when we deep fry the vegetable which is unhealthy. Addition of besin to the already cooked bhendi fry makes the curry non greasy by absorbing all the moisture in the fry. Bhendi is my dad's favorite vegetable, now after tasting this curry my hubby became a huge fan of bhendi. Now coming to the recipe.

Directions
Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, when they start splattering add cumin seeds and urad dal. When the urad dal turns brown add onion and fry till they are transparent. Add turmeric and ginger garlic paste and cook till raw smell disappears. Add bhendi and cook till they are tender you can cook even by closing the pan with a lid or in an open pan. Cooking in a closed pan makes it to cook faster, but once the bhendi is cooked you will have to remove the lid and cook. Add Cumin powder, coriander powder, red chili powder, salt and amchur powder and mix well. Finally add 3 tbsp of besin flour and mix well. Cook in the while lid open under medium flame till the fry turns crispy. Finally add oil roasted ground nuts and mix well. Turn off the stove garnish with cilantro if you like and serve with rice. This goes awesome with tomato rasam and white rice.
Hope you like my recipe, please leave your valuable comments!!!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Spagetti is favorite for everyone especially kids, love to scoop these soft noodles into their mouth. If kids say I am not hungry just make this yummy spagetti and put them on the table, they will run and come to you and finsh the bowl in no time. Spagettin is one wonderful food, that we can make many variations with. I love the way my mother makes, she grinds the tomato, green chili together and adds to the fried noodles by seasoning with salt and pepper. I used to have it very often. The taste of noodles/spagetti changes a lot by the addition of tomato juice, this inspired me to make spagetti with salsa. Now, coming to the recipe

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Few days back when I visited Vimitha anad's blog "My culinary trial room" I found this amazign recipe. It is very simple and I love this curry due to a very special reason that I always dump the leftover spring onions every time I bought it, now I know how wonderful recipes can be made from scrach as well. This recipe is very simple and it tastes wonderful with pulka/roti. I just fell in love with this curry by tasting it just one time. Hope you will like it too!

Directions:
Heat 2tbsp of oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and when they start splattering add red chili and onion. When the onion turn transperant, add ginger garlic paste, turmeric and when the mixture leaves the raw smell. Add Spring onion and they will cook in 5min under medium flame., when they are done add red chili powder, salt and mix well. Finally add gram flour and mix well. cook for 2min under slow flame. Garnish with cilantro if you wish. Serve hot with roti or it goes well with rice too!
hope you like my recipe please leave your valuable commets!!!!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Today is the day! "Good Food Recipes" was officially born a year ago! I can’t believe it’s been a year– although sometimes it feels like it’s been longer. LOL Not in a bad way, though. My blog journey begins with a very traditional recipe Bobbattu (Sweet Paratha) and it continues successfully with this 300th post which is my favorite sweet and sour Dahi vada. I thank and reward all this credit to my fellow bloggers, friends and family members especially my hubby for all your encouraging words and support.

Let me take a minute to tell about the achievements of this blog with a pride!

Now coming to the recipe sweet and sour dahi vada, this is one of my favorite breakfast meal. When ever I have this lip smacking food, I remember gokul chat. Gokul chat is one of the most popular fast food center (Chat Bandar ghar) in Hyderabad, India where me and my mother stop by when every time we go shopping, I always used to have this wonderful dahi vada especially in summer and my mother used to have dahi puri. When I visit India I would definitely visit gokul chat and enjoy my favorite food with my mom. Now coming to the recipe

Drain
the water and grind it in a blender to a smooth batter
with a thick consistency.

Use
very little water in the course of blending.

More
water will ruin the vadai shape & texture

At
the end, add 1/2 ts pepper powder, salt per taste and grind again.

Add
shredded coconut and beat the batter with hand or blender for about 2 min on
low speed to aerate your batter.

TIP:
To find if the batter is well aerated, just drop little batter in a bowl of
water. If it sinks, batter needs to be aerated. If it floats, it is well
aerated.

Aeration
will yield fluffy soft vadas.

Heat
a pan of oil - keep it in medium flame

To
check if the oil is hot enough, drop a small pea sized batter in the hot oil -
if it sizzles and rises to the top immediately, oil is good to go

Wet
your hands in cold water, gently scoop the batter with your bare fingers, and
roll up into a ball and gently make a hole using your thumb, drop it into the
oil

In
couple of minutes, flip the vada upside down and let it fry
until both sides turn golden brown

Drop the vadas minimum 3 in a batch and using
a perforated laddle scoop them all onto a paper
towel to absorb the excess oil

Serve
hot with chutney

To
keep the vadas crisp for few hours, you may either preheat the oven to 250
degrees - turn it off and keep the vadas in or just keep cover the hot oil pan
(after frying) with plate and place the vadas over the plate and cover up with
another plate.

Now for preparing Dahi Vada

Take a flat conatiner as shown and place 4 vadas on it. Take curd/yogurt in a bowl and beat well, add it on top of vada and sprinkle salt, chat masala, red chili powder, sugar, parsely, fennel seeds and raisins on top of it. Refrigerate for 30min and enjoy. (I could not wait that long, just smacked immediately). Hope you like it too!

Friday, April 6, 2012

When ever I prepare this curry, I remember the lady at Apple bees (Restaurant In America), she is a waitress. It was my first visit to this restaurant, when we (me and my hubby) were given menu cards I was seriously searching for vegetarian (Veggie) item, but to my surprise I could not find single item. So, my hubby asked the waitress if she could help us in ordering any veggie item for us, and here is the most interesting part of the story she suggested the items in the menu that contain fish. Perfect! right, to her fish is a veggie food, then I asked her to suggest the item that contains no meat, then she said that's what I am saying you can have these(that contain fish) items they do not contain meat. I struggled a lot to explain her what veggie means according to me, finally I have to order a mushroom pizza (No problem! Pizza is always my first priority). And there the story ends, BTW in India, I heard that Calcutta people do consider fish as a veggie. But according to me, I do not agree! I made this fry for my hubby, he loved it, hope you like it too!!

Thursday, April 5, 2012

If you are living in UK/USA, you are obviously craving for Indian food. I know everyone want to find the taste of home in every dish they eat. There are only few vegetables available in the grocery that are Indian such as egg plant, potato, cucumber, capsicum, oakra etc., and leafy vegetables like spinach and cilantro/coriander.

You can also use sprouted beans, celery, squash, parsley and other vegetables. If you do not like to eat celery in salads just throw them in fried rice and enjoy the delicious flavorful fried rice with little twist.

Method:
Heat oil in a pan and add bay leaf, beans, celery, onions and green chili. Saute until the raw flavor goes away. Then add coriander powder, soy sauce, salt and pepper powder. Give a quick saute until the all vegetables are well cooked under medium flame. Now add rice, mint leaves and cilantro and mix well. Cook for about 2min under medium flame and squeeze some lemon juice at the end and serve hot.
Hope you like my recipe, please feel free to post your comments. They are very valuable for me, you can even subscribe by e-mail to my blog, the recipes will reach your inbox. ThanX for visiting my space. Please bookmark it to visit/ remember again.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Halwa is everyones favorite. Making of halwa is very simple process, these preprations make in almost all house holds during festivals in India. If you have a sudden guest in your home, this is the perfect dessert you can make in minutes and serve hot. I love all kinds of halwa, but gajar/carrot halwa is always my favorite. Moong dal halwa tastes wonderful, you can't have just one spoon. I made this yesterday and you all know that my hubby does not have sweet tooth, but he finished the entire bowl that I served in no time. He just liked it soo much. I love watching him, enjoying my recipes :D.

Ingredients
Moong dal/Pesara Pappu -2cups
Ghee-4tbsp
Jaggery grated-1 and 1/2 cups, if using sugar-2 cups...you can also add brown sugar if you like
Milk-3cups
cardamom powder-1/2tbsp
Nuts and dry fruits as per your taste (For garnishing)

Directions
Dry roast Moong dal and grind it in to a coarse powder when it is chill. In a deep, thick bottom non-stick pan boil milk, when the milk came to boil add moong dal powder and mix well. When the moong dal absorbs all milk and starts becoming thick add sugar/jaggery (Bellam)/ brown sugar and mix well. Also add ghee, cook under medium flame and keep stirring the mixture. Now when the ghee starts leaving the halwa from the sides of the pan, add cardamom powder and mix well. Take the mixture in to the serving bowl and garnish with nuts and dry fruits. You can serve it hot or cold. Kids love chilled halwa. You can also make burfis out of this halwa, by pouring the halwa on a ghee greased plate and allow it to chill in a fridge, cut it in to bars and serve. Hope you like my recipe. I just enjoyed it!!!!

Monday, April 2, 2012

Well friends you all know there is an event going in my blog " Home made remedy recipes" for this my first entry is kada. It is traditional North Indian remedy for cold and cough. You can make it and store it in refrigerator for one week.
It is pretty tasty though. It gives you a sort of relief from sore throat, unblocks your nose, decongests your chest, and provides some relief from cough.

Directions:
Boil all the ingredients together until water reduces to half the original volume.
Strain and drink HOT. If you want to add more taste, mix a little milk (about 2 tbsp for 1 cup kada).
You can also add tea leaves & milk into it and drink it like masala chai. I usually make quite a bit and keep the left over unstrained kada in the fridge. It keeps well for up to a week.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Climate is changing, it may be good news for the drug makers, but it’s bad news for us. I see lots of people suffering from allergies, cold, flu etc., more now a days. The climate change, rise of levels of pollen in air makes us hard to survive on out doors.

Symptoms include nasal congestion, cough, itching, sneezing or associated sinus infections, bronchitis or poorly controlled asthma. Some of the home remedies that I know and want to share with you all are saline nasal irrigations, rinse your hair before going to bed, using dust mite-proof encasings, change air filters regularly, maintain a moderate level of humidity indoors, keep your pets out of your bedroom and possibly investing in an air purifier. Roll up car windows and always keep air-conditioning if you have outdoor allergies. Special window screens are available now that have been shown to effectively reduce entry of grass or weed pollen into the house.

Every family has that at least one home remedy in their family lore. It can be as simple as a way to stop bad breath, relieve the symptoms of sunburn or even a cold/flu. Any recipe or any tip is welcome share here. Only Vegetarian and eggless recipes from your family tree are accepted.

1. Please link this event announcement with your entry, this is
mandatory.2. Use of logo is mandatory but it helps to
spread the word. 3. Multiple entries are allowed,
archived are only allowed if reposted and updated with this
event link.
4. In the event of problem using linky you can
email me the entry at foodblognews@gmail.com